Something for all you Europeans

[Refalm]

I don't think there is such a thing as pure "good" and "evil". Nothing is "good" or "evil".

[Laukev7]

As I said. Good and evil don't even exist; they are just concepts.

[flap]

Well I'm specifically saying that incest (though cousins marrying generally isn't regarded as incest) isn't 'wrong' by any reasonable standard because it doesn't harm anyone.

It's certainly not a good idea for close relations to breed, but there's nothing wrong with them merely having sexual relations with one another.

[Laukev7]

Incest does harm someone. That would be the inbred child who might have to cope with physical, or even mental handicaps.

As for relationships, well, I shouldn't even believe in marriage in the first place, as it is a religious concept. In fact, I know very little about love relationships, as I never had a girlfriend so I guess I'll just have to take your word for it. But even I'm not desperate enough to make such engagements.

[ July 29, 2003: Message edited by: Laukev7 ]

[flap]

quote:Incest does harm someone. That would be the inbred child who might have to cope with physical, or even mental handicaps.

Er, yeah, that's why I just agreed with you that close relations shouldn't breed. But as I said, there's nothing wrong in two consenting adults sleeping with each other.

[Great_Satan]

See

http://forum.faithfreedom.org/

[suselinux]

quote:Originally posted by Great_Satan:
See

http://forum.faithfreedom.org/

COOL!

[Faust]

Alright sorry about the anti texan racial slur.  I'll blame it on...  eskimos?  Surely there are no eskimos on the forums likely to be offended?  If there are I'll go with Tasmanians.     It was a joke guys, I guess I should be less flippant.

And I guess Flap has a point with the inbreeding - it's only wrong if theres an intent to / not enough protection against have / ing children.  But was Einstein trying to avoid having children with his cousin or was he giving it his best?  Did they even *have* decent protection back then?

 

quote:
Well, as you said, scientists know better today.

In Newtons day when people tried using past explanations of gravitational effect (such as the belief that heavier objects would fall faster than lighter ones) to show people that science could be wrong they would have said the same.  In 2000 years when Einsteins theories have been improved upon (likely replaced completely) they will also say "we know better now."  Indeed, some of Feynamns work is starting to be seen as improvements upon Einsteins.  Science is a process which a)constantly evolves and b)is never *absolutely* correct.  I agree we know *better* now but we still dont know much at all either.  In mathematical terms the truth generated by science N is a limit as N approachs T (absolute truth.)  It's kinda an assymptopic thing.     Basically you _cannot_ use science to argue against the "God issue" as it is inherently fallible.

 

quote:
Again, scientific rigour has evolved since then.

No it hasn't.  The *equipment* has evolved but scientists are still very excitable boffins in lab coats.  (alright maybe not, but you get the point.)  Scientists are *people.*  They always will be people and they are as fallible as the rest of us.  The ultimate progression towards scientific exactitude was performed by Rene Descartes in the 18th century  (This is the guy you should be blaming for a lot of cartesian geometry btw.)  Do you want to know the *one* thing that the most rigorous piece of scientific rigour can prove?  Cogito ergo sum.  Thats _it_.  No knowledge that your body exists, no knowledge that the sky is blue, no knowledge that god does / does not exist, no knowledge that there is not a powerful demon attempting to fool you, no knowledge that you do not live inside a "matrix."  We know _nothing_.

 

quote:
Sorry, I meant a semester.

Sorry we obviously have much different definitions of "session."  Stupid cultural gap.     Anyway it still doesn't make you an "expert in the field."

 

quote:
I know the whole Greek alphabet

I just look it up in the back of my specialist maths book, no need learn the thing.  

 

quote:
Well, it is infinite, but... in a finite way.

War is peace, slavery is freedom kinda thing?  Infinity is not a member of the reals dude, and finite numbers are wholly contained within the reals.  Thus infinity != any finite number, nor is it even comparable.  

 

quote:
finite because is is not bigger than the size at a given moment

This quality applies to infinity too.  (Stupid keyboards why they have no infinity symbol?)  If n = Infinity then n^n will still equal infinity, as it is already as big as it can be.  Indeed maple tells me:
> infinity*infinity;
                               infinity
(and of course I trust the computer without looking it up...)
BTW an interesting question, what is infinity - infinity?  I believe it is infinity, and maple gives me "undefined,"  anyone care to have a stab at 0?

Please don't take any of this personally, I'm quite enjoying the mental stimulation, much better than debating with most people I know.  Most of my friends assume that debating = arguing and raising your voice = winning the argument.  

[Faust]

Oh the time I'll waste while waiting for a few gigs of mp3s to turn into oggs...  (oh man some divine intervention from God (in the form of a free RAID array) would be nice here...)

Back to the original topic:
French intolerance of religions as tame as JW's and the scientologists is lamo and immoral.

[jasonlane]

quote:Originally posted by Faust:
Oh the time I'll waste while waiting for a few gigs of mp3s to turn into oggs...  (oh man some divine intervention from God (in the form of a free RAID array) would be nice here...)

Back to the original topic:
French intolerance of religions as tame as JW's and the scientologists is lamo and immoral.

heheh
   

Yup but what do you do when you have CRAZY (French) cults like the those solar temple guys that kill each other, or top themself???

Actually there's quite a Templar revival going on in the UK. If your the romantic nut you'd love it.

Question: What will the French try and ban next?

 

[Laukev7]

quote: But was Einstein trying to avoid having children with his cousin or was he giving it his best? Did they even *have* decent protection back then?

Elsa already had children, so I don't think Einstein actually wanted to children with her.

Alright, flap, I admit it's NOT wrong to have sex with a relative if both consent. Just don't advertise too much, OK? Please?    

 

quote: Basically you _cannot_ use science to argue against the "God issue" as it is inherently fallible.

Science itself is not going to solve the God issue. Pure logics, though, is not inherently infallible like science. The fact that 2 + 2 = 4 cannot be disproved outside of an Orwellian world, so logics can debunk many misconcepetions, whether it's contradictions, inconsistencies and so on.

 

quote: No knowledge that your body exists, no knowledge that the sky is blue, no knowledge that god does / does not exist, no knowledge that there is not a powerful demon attempting to fool you, no knowledge that you do not live inside a "matrix." We know _nothing_.

Then, by your own reasoning, you imply that you don't know yourself whether god exists or not. In fact, it destroys your argument that science cannot prove god, because you don't even know whether he really *is* perfect, if he exists in the first place. It might very well be some alien kid who decided to make an experiment, and created an explosion. That 'God' might even have its own God itself. If all our creator did was make an explosion, and everything just evolved from that, then whether God exists or not doesn't even matter. Or, in mathematical words, they cancel out.  

[Faust]

quote:
Yup but what do you do when you have CRAZY (French) cults like the those solar temple guys that kill each other, or top themself???

Hey provided everyone joins of their own free will, doesnt hurt anyone else and is of sound mind they can do what they want.  Will certainly reduce the number of people in the world, and that means more stuff for me.  

Weren't the Templars accused of Demon worshipping?  (specifically satan in his half goat form I think - in that form his name started with "B" I think.  Wasn't Beelz'bub though...)  Man joining them guys would be so freaking cool...  Get a big suit of armour, some black and white cloths and then you get to beat the crap out of people with a sword...  *sigh*  /faust starts staring into the distance wistfully...

 

quote:
Pure logics, though, is not inherently infallible like science. The fact that 2 + 2 = 4 cannot be disproved outside of an Orwellian world,

Assuming infallible was meant to be fallible up there...
Actually it is.  You could be insane and imagining all this.  Anyway you still havent shown that 2 + 2 = 4 for all 2 and all 4.  You are taking as evidence that 2 + 2 = 4 the fact that every single time you have put two objects next to two objects before you have ended up with 4 - but if I were to roll a dice and get 2 twenty times in a row I could make a claim as to that dice only being capable of rolling a 2, when it may just be a coincidence.  My next roll may be a 6, I just dont know.  Also be wary of using logic to prove a point - in the Real World it almost always falls to experimental evidence - eg the Greeks belief that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects was based in logic.  ie:
Heavy objects fall.
Light objects often dont (feathers, leaves etc)
Ipso facto heavier objects fall faster than light ones.
It wasnt until some dude (Aristotle?)  (allegedly) dropped two differently weighted masses off a very tall tower that that theory was debunked - logic fell to experiment.

 

quote:
so logics can debunk many misconcepetions

Logical arguments must still rest on axioms - and axioms by their nature cannot be proven to be true.

 

quote:
Then, by your own reasoning, you imply that you don't know yourself whether god exists or not. In fact, it destroys your argument that science cannot prove god, because you don't even know whether he really *is* perfect, if he exists in the first place. It might very well be some alien kid who decided to make an experiment, and created an explosion. That 'God' might even have its own God itself. If all our creator did was make an explosion, and everything just evolved from that, then whether God exists or not doesn't even matter. Or, in mathematical words, they cancel out

No I cant prove it, thats the beatiful part.  But neither can you disprove it.  Neither of us knows anything concrete, all we have is conjecture and assumptions.  In fact I cant even know for sure that I dont know anything for sure but at this stage my head starts to hurt.  

 

quote:
it destroys your argument that science cannot prove god, because you don't even know whether he really *is* perfect, if he exists in the first place.

1)god is supposedly perfect
2)i know nothing for sure
from 2: 3)i dont know whether god is perfect
from 1 and 3: 4)i cannot be sure as to the god issue
5) science can prove that god does/nt exist.
5 does not appear to follow from your premises, and premise 1 contains a supposedly - rendering it useless for the argument.  You have shown that I do not know what i am talking about but you havent shown that science does know what its talking about.

I agree with you that its not an important question to how we live our lives - we are very illogical creatures after all.  But it is still *interesting* in the same way that knowing whether a meson has component particles is useless, but kinda fun to try and find out.  The world is jsut more fun when you ask lots of stupid questions.  

 

quote:
That 'God' might even have its own God itself.

Recursive Gods stretching into infinity.  You'll make a fine programmer some day.  

 

quote:
Question: What will the French try and ban next?

Personally I have an urge to travel to france and hit on all the cute french girls (gotta love that beatiful accent) to see if they ban me.  

[psyjax]

Science does know what it is talking about.

Concider, we as humans are subject to our perception of the world. Unless we can understand something in our terms, it's out of our reech.

Science is the tool which allows us to mold the abstract phisical realm around us to our perception. It is a tool, it isn't truth, it provides a practical aplicable methodology.

Weather the suppositions, axioms, etc. we start out with to prove a scientific theory are actually true or not is irelevent. we simply use those as tools fo our perception.

Alot of real, accurate, chemestry was created by the alchemists back in their day, yet the common notions (primal elements of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Quintescence, lead to gold, etc.) were totaly false.

It dosn't matter, weather it's true or not, because it seems to me that truth is ultimately subjective.

[Laukev7]

quote: You are taking as evidence that 2 + 2 = 4 the fact that every single time you have put two objects next to two objects before you have ended up with 4

No. I am talking about pure concept here, not an experimental process. While experiments are subject to unknown forces of nature, mere concepts and identities cannot be modified, with only one possible exception that I will explain later. We have invented a system of numbers in order to apply it in practice, not the opposite. So, we decided that we use a decimal system to count, and we gave names to numbers. Therefore, we decided to call one carrot next to another carrots two carrots, and so on. So, if we reduce everything to abstract, we have 1 and we have 2. It has been arbitrarily decided that 2 comes after 1. So, if there is only one unit missing before 1, then 1 + 1 must equal two.

Of course, the number after 1 could have been defined as 3. Or 4. In which case, 1 + 1 would equal 3, or 4, and the equation would be true. But only if one of the definitions has been changed. Ad if we use a binary system instead, 1 + 1 = 10, not 2, since 2 DNE.

 

quote: logic fell to experiment.

Not quite. Logic failed only because part of the equation was missing. Greeks were not aware that inertia applied downwards as well as sideways and upwards. It was not logic itself that failed in that case.

However, it can come in useful to solve more abstract problems, like 'Is future predetermined or not?'. For example, 'If future is already written, and cannot be changed, and you are somehow aware of it, it means that it is written that you are aware of it. Therefore, it makes no difference whether it is written or not'. This is just an example, and my thought process is MUCH more complex than that.

If God only created the Big Bang, then what's the point of believing in Him at all? If you believe any religion, you'll go to hell somehow in another religion. Prayers and ceremonies are useless, one way or another.

 

quote: Recursive Gods stretching into infinity. You'll make a fine programmer some day.

I'm getting to that.    I just don't know where to start, or what kind of program to write.

[Faust]

quote:
I'm getting to that.    I just don't know where to start, or what kind of program to write.

I started with simple maths programs in Tbasic (graphics calculator language.)  After that I went on to basic shell scripts, and then Eiffel (which I _love_, then C++ and I am going to be doing some SPARC assembly (!) next year.  Just start small and work up.  Courses are a good bet though - having someone read through a program explaining concepts (not actual code) to you makes it so much easier.     Also If you're going to learn from a book, choose one with interesting examples.  I tried to learn C++ from "sams teach yourself C++ in 21 days" and it was _torture_ trying to stay motivated with the really boring examples they had.

And you still havent established your sanity.